Over at BigJournalism.com there’s a pseudonymous columnist named Retracto the Correction Alpaca.
He submits retraction requests to newspapers and magazines when he believes that he’s spotted an error in a story. His columns are available online.
He’s become popular, and he even has his own theme song.
I don’t always agree with his analysis of a needed correction, but I admire his persistence. His column is part of a collection of websites from Andrew Breitbart. (Breitbart leans right; he espouses a small-government conservatism rather than libertarianism.)
How did this come about, that someone could go online, take a funny name, and demand retractions from major publications?
One might be tempted to say that technology made it possible, but there’s more to it than that. Before the technology, there was the desire and ambition to speak and write as one wished.
Now you know, and I know, that there are stuffy people, smug and stodgy, who deride these new ventures. I’m sure the odd names, and something like a theme song, must be off-putting.
I don’t always think that Retracto’s right, but I do think he’s doing the right thing. It’s not an easy or convenient thing, for him or for those from whom he requests retractions, but it is a good thing.
There’s an evident enthusiasm in Retracto that’s admirable. It’s not the (false) enthusiasm that one sees local officials feign, and their back-patting cronies imitate and publicize.
It’s the genuine article, and happily, America is likely to see much more of it.